A PS3-like wireless gaming pad for the budget concious

For

Against

Mouse and keyboard control is very handy in strategy and FPS gaming. Try as they might, console kids with speedy thumbs will struggle to beat hardened mouse-aimers to the draw.

Sacred as the native PC peripherals are though, gamepads have superseded them in sports and racing games, such is the lure of analog sticks and triggers, and feeling the sickening vibration when you hit the bar or write off your car.

SpeedLink's Strike FX is a PS3-alike pad that appears to have been designed by Lucian Freud himself.

The aesthetic difference to the official PS3 pad is subtle, but something about it suggests SpeedLink wants you to play games where you walk in straight lines through grey corridors.

It's fairly comfy, contoured at the rear around your fingers. The L2 and R2 buttons are also shaped around your trigger finger, and this beats most PS3 pads in that you don't constantly feel about to slip off.

However there's a smaller angle between zero and maximum depression, so you lose a little in racing games in terms of easing the accelerator and brakes.

Wireless functionality is nearly as good as the £35 official pad. The Strike FX turns itself off very quickly if left idle, saving battery but occasionally annoying during long cut-scenes.